Abortion: not a simple issue
Interviews conducted by Erica Fehr
As we heard from over 20 women throughout EMC with varying levels of experience and study on the topic of abortion, similar threads wove through their responses. For almost everyone who grew up in the church, abortion had been a simple issue with a clear right and a clear wrong, yet for many of them, their perspective has shifted over time. Without questioning the sanctity of life or the fact that abortion is the death of a child, each one acknowledged that it is an extremely complex topic and that they have been “compel[led] to a more compassionate response and to total dependence on God’s sovereignty to transform sinful hearts,” as one respondent put it. “The same grace that we have received from the Father,” added another.
Often both pro-life and pro-choice advocates forget the other lives involved in the discussion.
Those who are pro-life “forget the mom that is attached to the child [they] seek to save, resulting in alienating those who are in great need of support.” One woman who defines herself as pro-life pointed out the irony of being pro-life and issuing death threats to doctors who perform abortions “How is that being pro-life?” she asks.
Pro-choice advocates on the other hand often neglect the fact that in our human tendency to avoid suffering, abortion may be the easy way out, but it is still the taking of a life.
The women we spoke with made neither of those errors. They held their pro-life convictions firmly and yet were almost universally compassionate towards women contemplating abortion. “When a woman is pregnant,” one of the respondents said, “somebody is going to die… metaphorically, the woman is going to die to herself if she carries the baby to term.”
There was often tension within the women we spoke to. One relayed the horror she felt at the thought of what an unborn child experienced when it was aborted—so much so that she couldn’t even think about it. And yet, she herself had an unplanned pregnancy after already having children and in spite of her convictions was very tempted by the fantasy of her child dying, “because I knew what I was getting into” she said “and I didn’t want to do it.” “Was I tempted to go to an abortion clinic?” she asked “No, but I can totally empathize with a woman who feels so stuck—so panicky that she’s just thinking of any way out. And yeah, how do you help a woman through that?” “Many women choose an abortion because of the insurmountable circumstances she feels at the moment.”
Another factor repeated by several respondents was the pressure women felt when making the decision. “Studies indicate that the majority of women who abort feel pressured or coerced by significant others. She may feel pressure from circumstances such as finances, living situation, illness, work or school situation. She may also feel pressure from culture that considers a woman a fool if she carries to term in spite of difficulties, embarrassment or inconvenience. Movies, TV, and magazines all support sex without guilt and abortion on demand.”
Context and Complexities
Stories abound of women in impossible situations. Each of the stories included below is a situation personally known to a respondent.
“Later in my 20s a friend from my church got pregnant. She had an abortion. She was from a prominent family and they already had a daughter who had a baby out of wedlock and the whole ordeal was difficult. I think my friend wanted to save face since the father of the baby was not interested in being part of her life in the long term.”
One woman grew up in an abusive home, where a teen pregnancy would likely have put her in physical danger. She lived in a small town where accessing crisis pregnancy support was not possible, but had she been placed in that situation she could have invented a reason to go to the doctor for an abortion.
“I spent a decade and a half walking with inner city teens, many of whom experienced motherhood at a very young age. Each teen was different in their response and action to their positive pregnancy result, no one case was the same. The reasons they held for their excitement, fear, or dread were varied.”
“I’ve talked to women that are raped and then felt like well, now I’m pregnant so I can’t teach [Sunday School] anymore… [They] don’t want to explain that story to someone because they’re so filled with shame. They’re just like, ‘it’s easier to let people think that I chose to sleep with somebody and then got pregnant.’”
There is a gap in education for younger kids, maybe age 13 to 16, “where they would [say] ‘if it was wrong, the government would never fund all these things. If it was actually killing a baby, they would never do that. It’s not a baby.’ They don’t want to believe that it’s a baby, so obviously that helps them in this process.”
“I had one lady… at least ten years ago…, she already had one or two children... one of her children had been born with a genetic problem that made their life very difficult physically, like physical suffering. And she had accidentally unintentionally gotten pregnant. She was wrestling with the … chance that this baby would be born with significant genetic defects…”
One respondent recalled that when she “was a rebellious teen, I … told my mom that if I ever got pregnant I would keep the baby and raise it by myself. Her response was that I would not have to. They (my parents) would help me.” Yet for many teens and women, this is the opposite of their reality.
Many reasons were given that would prompt a woman to consider abortion over parenthood or, in some cases, even adoption. Would the birth of this child bring them into an abusive or neglectful environment? Is it a choice of which life to save; is the mother in a situation medically where her health and life are dependent on not being pregnant? Would keeping the baby, or even just continuing the pregnancy result in her losing her partner, her home, her connection with her family, or her job? Is she able to fully care for a child for the next 18 to 25 years, especially without community supports? If their child is born disabled, are they able to care for them for life? Does the woman have a mental health problem that will only get worse with pregnancy or parenthood?
For many Christian, church-attending women, the shame of having an abortion is no different than the shame of an unwed pregnancy, but it can be hidden.
Christian or not, many women who have abortions will experience regret, either immediately after or years down the road. “I’ve had women call me at the centre, weeping after their abortion, telling me they want their baby back. Just crying, sobbing. I believe many, many, maybe every woman, grieves as she does it, but does it anyways because she can’t see an alternative.”
“A woman came into the centre and she had an abortion. And you know what she did? She asked the abortion provider to give her the fetus after the abortion because she wanted to bury it.”
“Basically I see it all as very complicated. Life is complicated. A decision like this is complicated. No story is simple. I think each person and each story is precious and putting laws… on those in this kind of a situation is dangerous and distracting.”
Both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life?
When considering the options of pro-life or pro-choice, as defined within the abortion debate, a portion of our respondents questioned whether laws banning abortion were the answer.
“It seems weird to force a moral/religious view on people who don’t carry that view.” We do not live in a Christian nation; “I don’t think that we can hold nonbelievers to the same beliefs that we expect Christians to hold.”
“Our society has oppressed unmarried, pregnant women, often giving them neither choices or support… both sides are often really believing the same lie… that my own personal rights are of primary importance… Ironically, both sides want to silence the voice of the other side, making it illegal to disagree with their perspective.”
Abortion access confers “more dignity [as we] trust people to make the best decision for their lives.”
“I am concerned that we have become blinded to the fact that you can be pro-woman and pro-life at the same time.” Being pro-life should mean advocacy for both the life of the child and the life of the mother. One woman called it “pro-grace,” a view presented by an organization of the same name. They note that “when Jesus was confronted with two conflicting ideas, He always pointed out that neither offered the complete picture and instead gave a third Kingdom response.”
Men and Abortion
An interesting point raised by a handful of respondents was men’s role in abortion. “’Don’t get a girl pregnant’ is often one of the parents’ last words if the guy goes out in the evening. Or ‘nothing good happens after midnight.’ Guys also have learned a certain way to look at themselves.”
Even if they have pressured their partner into it, men do not share the responsibility for the abortion. They opt for the “quick fix” but do not have to bear the physical or emotional load of their choice to end that life, either societally or internally.
That is not to say that this is a universal response. Though rare, and usually only true of older, more mature men, some respond with excitement over their child. “We’ve had men that come to the crisis centre and [ask], ‘Can you talk sense into my girlfriend and get to stop from aborting my baby?’” Unfortunately, under Canadian law, these men have no rights to that baby.
The Words We Use
Over the years the conversation around abortion has changed. “It used to be mainly a matter of educating women and their partners that they were actually carrying a life inside of them… That has changed as bioethicists and doctors have fully recognized and admitted that the unborn baby IS a life, but that a woman should STILL have the right to choose whether or not to carry their baby to term.”
And as the conversation has changed, so has the language we use. We refer to “products of conception” and fetuses. Often we’ll refer to abortion as being the “convenient” option, with some women using this language of their own abortions. Yet they often still grieve; “there is going to be pain there that cannot be dealt with just changing language.” Our tendency is to “shield ourselves from pain and suffering and death, and we do that in so many different areas… We are not impacted with the true reality of our choices, and so, ‘convenience.’… I can even … understand and have empathy for women who use that word for themselves because any woman who’s willing to look fully in the face of what she’s doing? It’s too painful… One way that she’s going to protect herself, and one way that she’s going to cope, is to use a different word, so she’s going to say ‘this is the convenient choice.’”
Related Issues
Abortion is not a simple issue, nor does it stand as an isolated conversation. Other topics often crept in as these women processed their thoughts on abortion.
One prevalent theme was miscarriage. One woman’s passion for the unborn was ignited when she experienced three miscarriages of her own; “the 18-week-old little boy…he’s big. He was sitting in my whole hand… He’s fully developed.” For other women who talked about miscarriage though their concern was the inconsistency between how we talk about miscarriage vs abortion. “I have become more aware in recent years of unacknowledged complexity of this issue. In general, society, including Christians, responds to miscarriage differently than we respond to an infant's death - there is a difference. No one judges a woman whose unintentional actions lead to a miscarriage, but if a parent unintentionally kills their child there is usually a criminal investigation of some sort.” Another woman stated, “I found out [miscarriage] was really common when I was pregnant, and my doctor assumed that I would lose the pregnancy… If we adamantly believe that life begins at conception, where are the funerals? The grief is really necessary”
If we are advocates for life, how does that extend beyond the abortion debate? How do we respond to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and Canada’s recent laws making MAiD more accessible? How do we engage with climate science? How do we respond to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and the additional embryos that are not used?
Though better than many others, we live within a strained and broken medical system. “Doctors are too quick to suggest abortion,” concludes one respondent, after relaying the story of a couple whose doctor recommended abortion because of an illness in the child. The child was born healthy. Even when illness is certain, is abortion the right answer? The medical community often thinks so and can pressure families into it. A number of stories were told of families who chose life and got to hold their child for the hour between their birth and death.
“There are … so many factors surrounding the topic of abortion that also are important to consider, like how men should treat women, basic morals and behaviours, supporting single or teen mothers, offering adoption, coming alongside expectant women considering abortions and more.”
So What Can We Do?
Not every woman that considers an abortion has one. Some choose to continue on with the pregnancy and “for many, these children became wonderful blessings… The family for whom prenatal tests pointed to birth defects and were encouraged to abort. They did not and either their baby was perfectly healthy, or their lives were transformed through loving and being loved by someone with a disability. Or the young single woman I met, who had a toddler on her hip. In conversation she explained that she had been raped while on an overseas mission trip and that her lovely son turned out to be a miraculous blessing out of a horrible trauma. Or the couple that came alongside a pregnant woman and brought her into their home to raise her child together. Or the ‘unwanted’ or abused child who has grown up to experience the healing love of Jesus and lives in gratitude and joy to be alive. Or the young woman whose unexpected pregnancy gives her the purpose, motivation and desperation to seek help to overcome drug addiction. Perhaps there is more power in our stories of obedience, trust and humbly valuing life (whether deemed worthy or not) than in making statements (or posts) about what we believe.”
So what can we do? Life begins at conception and ends with death. Being pro-life should go beyond being anti-abortion to being a source of support and care for unwed mothers, and the church should be first in line to offer it.
